This is my 7th day in Hospital. Its boring. Apparently I suffer from a disease for highly intellectual and successful people as the doctor puts it. So I’m not going to complain about my disease but ... I ended up watching and re-watching stuff until it has reached that moment when my only source of entertainment is getting the hospital staff annoyed by my OCD. If anyone of you knows me, I’m sure you’ll agree that my OCD tendencies

Saving Algorithms

This is my 7th day in Hospital. Its boring. Apparently I suffer from a disease for highly intellectual and successful people as the doctor puts it. So I’m not going to complain about my disease but
rather celebrate it and tell the 8-4- 4 system to shove their results up their ass.

I ended up watching and re-watching stuff until it has reached that moment when my only
source of entertainment is getting the hospital staff annoyed by my OCD. If anyone of you

knows me, I’m sure you’ll agree that my OCD tendencies are a bit off the roof. Take an example
of when the physiotherapists told me they were sorry they couldn’t clean the cycling pedals
because apparently they only disinfect them every morning. Ta Imagini! So, lets assume that I
was the 30th patient to use it and a couple of patients who used it before me had either burns or
an itch or worse? Does that mean that my foot is now carrying several other disease? Does that
then mean that I will leave the hospital with 10 times the diseases that got me here?

The other issue I’ve complained about since Monday is the fact that my food is either brought
missing something or they just brought the wrong order for me. Every time I complained to the

waiters about it they promised they would talk to someone about it and promised me that it
wouldn’t happen again. Yet it did…numerous times until I went crazy and escalated the issue to
the Assistant guy in the kitchen and the sister in charge of the ward. I went crazy…I was totally
livid at the mediocre services I was given by the waiters and didn’t hide it. So, the assistant
kitchen guy tells me, “I will go and talk to…” I didn’t let him finish that statement I told him to stop
managing me and if isn’t the decision maker he should go away and call for me that guy they
keep saying they will talk to…Anyway, to cut the long story short my last three meals have been
to my specifications as the kitchen assistant guy promised to cross check my meal before it is
sent to me (now I’m just scared that he could be spitting in my food or even worse rubbing a
rat’s ass on my food before they bring it).

In my frustration, I wondered how many times patients have complained about the complacency
and mediocrity by the hospital staff. I have many examples I could share about my few days

here but for the sake of running out of paper I won’t mention. My next questions would then be;
what happens to the complains that patients rise everyday. Is it just taken in without any form of
feedback to the patient? Is it just taken as a ‘whatever’ situation and never put into
consideration to improve the system? Is this information just collected and never acted upon?
Or is it data that is put into consideration?

What if this data could be collected and algorithms created from the patterns defined by the
patients? Would the algorithms help improve the hospital services with the country? The

algorithm could calculate the pattern of the hospital disgruntles and return the hospital based on
the statistics collected through the algorithm would know where the problem is exactly and be
able to fix it. The hospital will know which matron works better than the other, would know where
hospital beddings go unchanged, they would know what waiter serves the wrong food and
which physiotherapist works better than the other. Most important the staff would know that they
are being watched and data is being collected about them. This I think would be the start of
change. So, all mathematicians, statisticians, wizards, computer scientists and otherwise get out
your note pads, Android phones, wands and laptops and start working on algorithms that will
bring change.
Written by Liz Kilili

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Creatives Garage

Creatives Garage is a multi-disciplinary collective space for Creatives to network, share ideas, collaborate, learn, gain market accessibility and push boundaries. Our goal is to create a thriving eco-system that impacts investing opportunities to deliver financial and social double bottom-line returns. We work with visual artists, performing artists and tech innovators who are social change agents in the society. Creatives Garage is a registered Arts Trust based in Nairobi. It was formed in 2012 and registered in 2013.